Mumbai: An official said that more than 40,000 doctors in Maharashtra are boycotting work as part of the strike given by their top body IMA in support of their agitating colleagues in West Bengal on Monday.
He said that doctors of various government and private hospitals of the state are mainly boycotting the OPD (outpatient department) and other non-essential health services.
“Over 40,000 doctors and other medical practitioners in Maharashtra have decided to support their colleagues in West Bengal who are protesting against their Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee,” an IMA official was quoted by PTI saying.
However, emergency services will not be affected and they will continue to get all the necessary medicines and medicines already admitted to the hospital, he said.
“The OPD services have been suspended at various hospitals in support of the strike call,” IMA Maharashtra’s honorary secretary Dr Suhas Pingale told PTI.
The IMA has demanded a comprehensive central law to deal with violence against doctors and health care workers.
The IMA said that punishment for the perpetrators of violence should be a component of central law and the appropriate amendment should be brought to the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Penal Code of Criminal Procedure (CRPC).
Junior doctors in West Bengal are on strike since June 11, when two of their colleagues were killed in an NRS medical college and hospital in Kolkata and a patient was injured and allegedly injured.
(With PTI Inputs)
